Multi-Site: Supplying Portable vs. Permanent Campuses
Q:
With non-permanent locations have you had to change the way [things] look, or some things that just don’t work well with a permanent location?
[asked in a recent session of our Connections Confab]
A:
One of the challenges of being a multi-site church (and there are roughly a billionty-and-a-half) is creating consistent standards across the board.
On one hand, I recognize that portable campuses – those meeting in schools, theaters, or other rented spaces – have to load out whatever they load in. For that reason, supplies and fixtures and resources need to be highly streamlined, mobile, and dare I say light.
On the other, we want a campus of our church to feel like … well … a campus of our church. From signage and screens to sermon branding and offering buckets, we don’t want huge disparities simply because a campus doesn’t have a permanent home.
Related posts:
This post will primarily explore this question from a Guest Services perspective (anything not on stage and not related to an age), but our central GS team also helps resource and advise other non-stage ministries (Kids, Students, Prayer Team, etc.) as they’re preparing for a new campus launch, whether that’s a permanent or portable space.
(I should add here that I am in no way an expert on the stuff of the stage: worship, production, and the like. Something something music and guitars something something sound boards and cables. There you go. Now you know what I know about that.)
When it comes to resourcing, our central Guest Services Team provides roughly 90% of non-consumable items for our campus Guest Services Teams (first-time guest tents, parking vests, signage) and some of our consumable items (first-time guest gifts, name tags, communion). That’s one reason that a master purchase list has been so helpful to us over the years. This also means that keeping consistency is a bit easier when there’s a central overlord common resourcing system available.
Which tail wags which dog?
The question at hand is basically this: “Do portable (or permanent) campuses change the way things look at permanent (or portable) campuses?”
And to answer it, we have to look back at our history. Our church was totally permanent for 40 years: concrete foundation. Shingled roof. Cushioned pews, stained glass, and a steeple. And then … not quite overnight but doggone close to it … we went totally portable for two and a half years: storage containers. High school auditorium. Road cases, pipe and drape, and set up and tear down. Starting in 2007, we became a mixture. At the time of this writing, we are almost exactly half and half (seven permanent locations and six portable ones).
For us, resourcing becomes a matter of space, quality, durability, and familiarity:
Space: there’s only so much room for so much stuff. Permanent locations still have a fair amount of set up and tear down, and those things we tear down have to live somewhere during the week. Even in those places where we’re not trying to fit everything in a storage trailer, we are trying to fit everything in a storage closet.
Quality: over the last 20 years we’ve learned how to be more nimble in resourcing permanent locations, and how to bring higher quality when resourcing portable locations. Quality isn’t about spending more money, it’s about investing in products that will last us over the long haul.
Durability: whether it’s permanent or portable, items are going to get dinged and scratched and dented and scraped. We can purchase a resource that looks really nice (quality) but doesn’t hold up to the rigors of constant use (see this post for a great example).
Familiarity: we want a Summit campus to feel like a Summit campus, so we work hard to make sure that space / qualiity / durability don’t come at the risk of familiarity. That leads us to the next section:
What items are absolutely the same?
The short answer is, as many things as possible. If it’s not something permanently settled in the structure (wall art, lobby furniture, bathroom fixtures, etc.), we try – whenever possible – to make much of uniformity. (And even in the case of those fixed items, many of our permanent locations have an overt sense of familiarity, even with geographically-specific interpretations.)
Signage: monument signage looks almost identical at permanent campuses. Portable signage is the exact same at all Summit campuses.
First-time guest process: whether it’s tents or workstations or gifts, they’re identical top to bottom.
Next Steps supplies: everything here gets pushed out from our central resourcing team: inviter cards, informational brochures, iPads, keyboards, etc.
You name it: radios. Umbrellas. Sign holders. Traffic cones. Offering buckets. Because our central team has experimented with so many good and bad items over the years, we typically know what will live up to space, quality, durability, and familiarity.
What items are necessarily different?
As we’ve started to build more buildings (four in the last eight years), we’ve leaned in on the quality piece a bit more. (And to be clear: some things we initially thought were “permanent campus”-only quickly became a solution for portable as well.)
But there are some items that just don’t hold up to the rigors of portable life, and some items that simply look better in a permanent facility. The way we display our Next Steps items has changed (the items are the same…the display is different). The way we present communion looks a bit different (again, same items, different presentation). The way food is laid out in Volunteer Headquarters is going to be a bit nicer (ceramic dishes vs. plastic trays).
But as I think about the items that are permanent only compared to all campuses, that number is surprisingly small. Again, if one of the goals of the Guest Services space is familiarity, we want to keep a similar look as much as we can.
So what does this mean for you? Well, if you’re a multi-site church, the applications are glaringly obvious. But even if you’re just one person overseeing one ministry at one location, there are values to be found in space, quality, durability, and familiarity.
How can you underscore those four values in your context today?
photo credit: Rob Laughter
